Wake Up
by BigMammaLlama5
Summary: Waking up after going through a living hell can be a little disorienting. Sometimes. CR universe. Lara/Sam T for mild language...


***I apologize for all of the minor grammar fixes! My beta and I were REALLY distracted last night with the new iOS 7 update on our phones... it's shiny and beautimus... Well... In my opinion. :D***

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**Disclaimer, blah blah blee bloo blah.**

**Rated T for brief language.**

**You were expecting Chapter 2. I lied. :D Trolololololololol…**

**But hopefully this will give everyone some warm fuzzies after that angsty monster I posted a few days ago. I promise Chapter 2 will be next. Promise. **

**Special thanks to my beta Katie for sharing her surgery/dopey medication times with me so I could try and be accurate!**

Wake Up…

Lara floated gently in the twilight of her mind, her body fuzzy and numb. Warm. She was warm. Is death supposed to be this comfortable? Anything seemed to be better than that hellish island they were stranded on. Lara was sure that if she hadn't plunged her torch into Himoko's brittle breastbone at that very moment, then she truly would have lost her mind. She already seemed to be extremely unhinged after all that had happened, perhaps it would have just been better to put a piece of lead in her head.

_Haha, that rhymed… Oh dear. There she goes again._ She managed to think.

Shreds of memories floated back through the gloom. White painted rails, gray stormy skies, mossy terra cotta tiles, tangy sea air, squalling gulls and cackling crows and coppery blood. Blood everywhere. Blood in her hair. On her hands. Under her nails. Staining her skin. She was red.

The Red Woman.

The Outsider.

Sounds like a blockbuster Hollywood movie. Maybe if she didn't go clinically insane, or if she even woke up, she'd convince Samantha to start a video game franchise on her name. Because _that_ would be amusing. She could see it now in big bright lights and dorky 90's-esque font. She'd be a suave and sexy woman who new her way around, fighting wild animals and powers of evil and dinosaurs and giant zombie centaurs. Not the bumbling twenty-one year old that had more good luck than a rabbit's foot charm. But for now, she was just content with floating. No pain, no blood, no screaming… it was quiet. Wonderfully quiet. Nothing could get to her here, wherever she was. Lara hoped that she would never leave…

But then she remembered all the fire. Those glowing, licking, and greedy flames of devouring inferno that seemed to consume the island with an unrelenting hunger. She _hated_ fire. Fire _burned_. As she thought this, she felt her body become icy hot. It started as a dull ache, but then spiked into a roaring sharp pain, blossoming out from where her side had been pierced by the rebar. But it felt worse. It felt exposed… _open._

_Ooooooh it HURTS._

_Fucking Christ IT HURTS!_

She quickly rushed back to a muddy consciousness, her eyes struggling to open. There was something in her throat blocking her airway. A tube was wrapped under her nose and around her cheeks. Why wouldn't her head move? Why were her legs made of lead? Lara tried to lift her arms to pull out what ever was jabbing her in the wrist but was deterred my rubber gloved hands gently holding her minutely moving fingers. Muffled shouts and clanging medical alarms barely made it to her brain through cotton-stuffed ears. Voices of both men and women were barely distinguished from one another. All she could think about was getting away. These people were trying to hurt her. Weren't they…?

Just as quickly as it had happened, the inviting warmth rushed back in through the tube under her nose and the sharp point in her wrist. Lara tried not to panic as she felt herself fall away from agonizing consciousness. Maybe that wouldn't happen again. Maybe they'd just let her sleep. God, how she wanted to just sleep…

She was floating again. But this time it felt different. She felt… better. Still odd, but somehow better. Lara focused on her throbbing side, but it was the itching in her left wrist that bothered her the most. She tried to reach over and scratch it, but gentle hands laced their fingers with hers and kept her from messing with whatever was itching. Soft fingertips gently rubbed her irritated skin and helped sooth the annoyance. She sighed shallowly and relaxed again, allowing the gentle petting and comfort of warm fingers intertwined with hers lull her back into a dreamless sleep.

Tangy antiseptic burned Lara's nose and slowly woke her from her slumber. A faint beep that matched the rhythm of her heart mingled with the quiet laid-back music that was coming from somewhere in the room. She swallowed heavily and nearly gagged, her parched mouth tasting of sterile plastic and bad breath. Lara tried to clear her throat but it felt as if she had swallowed a few handfuls of crushed glass. Slowly but surely, she forced her tired eyes open, thankful that the room was dimly lit. She took a moment to let her droopy eyes adjust, roving lazily across the speckled white ceiling. Her vision was blurry and out of focus, making everything look like fuzzy blobs of color. Slowly but surely, after blinking her dry eyes more than a few times, her vision began to clear but remained blurry in her peripherals.

_Hospital_. She is in a hospital. She's _safe_. She's not alone anymore. She can't feel the unbearable pain from her side. She feels _good_. A grin stretches languidly across her cracked lips and her cheeks hurt from the effort. Lara sits and smiles quietly to herself, the drugs meandering through her blood stream and placing her in a giddily relaxed mood. Movement from next to the window to her left catches her eye and she gingerly turns her head, squinting through her still slightly blurred vision. The familiar hulking figure of Jonah is slumped in a small plastic chair as he quietly snores away. He's dressed in dark navy scrubs and black slippers, his huge tree trunk arms crossed across his barrel chest. Jonah shifts again and Lara can see how exhausted he looks. She continued to look around the room and spotted the sprawled figure of Samantha.

The thin, prone woman is flat on her back on a rickety looking hospital foldout cot. Her left hand resting high on her flat stomach just under her breasts while her right was hidden under a frumpy pillow, her face pressed into her right bicep. Lara laid there and observed her best friend with a soft smile… Or more than best friend… What _were_ they? The memory of their mingled breath next to Roth's pyre slammed into her and a pang of longing lanced through her chest and down into her belly, causing the heart monitor to speed up a fraction. But… no. No, she couldn't do that to Sam, no matter how badly she wanted it. When had she started to feel that way anyways? But… even in a plain white v-neck tee, baggy gray sweat pants, and fluffy pink socks Lara thought she looked beautiful.

As if on cue, amber eyes snapped open in a panicked daze and zeroed in on her. Sam stared at her for a moment before closing her eyes again. Not even a second later she shot up into half sitting position, eyes wide and tearing up when Lara grinned widely again.

"Hi." She managed to whisper.

"_Lara_."

Sam slid off the bed and shuffled over to Lara's left side, her damp hair up in a messy half-pony tail. The odd mix of relief and grief twisted her tired pale face just before she crumpled and buried her face into Lara's neck, her arms gently wrapping around her reclined shoulders. Sam sobbed quietly into Lara's clumsy embrace but was still mindful of how hurt she was by keeping all of her weight on her elbows.

"We thought you were going to die." She sniffed quietly and leaned up, hovering her face over Lara's. Lara just smiled widely and patted Sam's sides awkwardly, her hands still not entirely under her control.

"You're cute." She grinned, her medication loosening her lips. _Oh crap_. She really did just say that.

"And you're high, sweetie." She tried to laugh and then pressed a firm kiss to the center of Lara's forehead.

"Mmmm'ssnice." She mumbled. "But're you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Really. You're the one that woke up during surgery."

"I… ow."

"Yeah, _Ow_. You weren't happy. They were in your side trying to clean out the infection."

"And I woke up?"

"And you woke up. I wasn't in the observation deck, but they sent someone out to let me know."

"Well… tha' was nice of 'em."

"It was."

Lara laid there and stared up into Samantha's worried gaze, wishing she were in better condition already. She grinned again and tried to curl her fingers into Sam's side to get a better grip. Her friend squirmed away with a giggle and pushed the call button on the bed above Lara's head.

"Whatcha doooin'?"

"Calling the doctor so he knows that you're away." Sam laced her fingers with Lara's still clumsy ones.

"Nooo not yet… Can I have a tooth brush please?" Lara let her dopey gaze rove over Sam's casually dressed figure, not catching her nodding head to her request and her hand withdrawing from the call button. She felt the pull of longing again when she noticed how _low_ the baggy sweat pants rode on Sam's flared hips, exposing the pale smooth skin of her trim waist and abdomen. Oh _god_, was she even _wearing_ underwear…? Wait a second…

"Are those _my_ pants?" She stared at the worn white logo screen print of Cambridge University on her left thigh, reaching out with her left hand and pressing her fingertips into the Cambridge Crest imprinted in white on the heather cloth.

"They are. Remember we were able to stop and find some of our clothes?"

"Oh… _Oh yeahhh_. Hey, you should totally wear those more often… You look pretty sexy wearin' my clothes…" Lara giggled and grinned cheekily while trying to wink, but only succeeded in a slow blink.

"Oh _really_… And what would you have me wear exactly?" She teased, shifting her hip up onto Lara's mattress.

"Ohhhhhh I dunooooo… Clothes…"

Sam giggled and rolled her eyes, aware of the fingers still prodding her thigh where the crest was printed. "Whatcha doin' Lara?"

"It feels funny. Like… Squishy but hard. And… and weird…"

"That's my leg, sweetie."

"Oh… well then it doesn't feel weird."

"It doesn't?"

"No is feels nice."

"_Damn_ you are higher than a kite right now."

"Not high enough to see tha'… that… uh…" Glazed eyes roved over Sam's front again, lingering on her chest and hips. "You look hot. Like. Really hot."

Sam blushed a pretty shade of pink and raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. A flirtatious smirk pulled at her lips before it disappeared quickly when a young Japanese nurse in white scrubs strode briskly into the room. She immediately noticed Lara was awake and shouted a message off to someone down the hall. A flurry of quick footsteps scuttled down the linoleum tiled floor and a doctor and a few other nurses bustled in after the first nurse. Lara was overwhelmed and hadn't even noticed that Sam had been pushed back to wait with a groggy Jonah. She kept on grinning through the poking and prodding, the chart checking, and the repetitive questions to make sure that she was all there and that the anesthesia hadn't messed her head up… or maybe it was all possibly due to the fact that she had almost _died_. _Finally_ they left her alone with a cup of ice chips on her side table after changing her IV saline bag.

Jonah pulled his chair over to the very side of her bed and gently took Lara's left hand, mindful of the IV needle on the outside of her writs. Sam shuffled around to the other side before gingerly climbing up onto Lara's hospital bed. She snuggled gently into Lara's mostly uninjured side and kissed her forehead again, her body pressed flush to Lara's side. Jonah grinned broadly and gave her fingers a comforting squeeze.

"Where's Reyes?"

"At the hotel sleeping. Don't worry, Little Bird. I left her a message." Jonah rumbled.

Lara smiled and yawned widely, the new drip of medicine stating to lull her back to sleep. She mumbled a few "_love you two_"s before sleep reclaimed her. This time she didn't panic. Lara was surrounded by her friends and they were okay. They were going to be okay.

They were safe, and that's all that mattered to her.


End file.
